


Vita Nova

by concertine



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angsty Goddamn Spies, M/M, everyone is a BAMF, knife shoes appreciation society
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-06-08 18:36:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15249504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concertine/pseuds/concertine
Summary: Four years ago, Javier Fernández fought his way through a complement of candidates to become Kingsman's new Galahad, and in doing so, discovers that one of his fellow agents is trying their level best to kill him.When Yuzuru Hanyu saves the life of a jaded, weary Galahad in a grimy Tokyo warehouse, both of them will be tattered around the edges. Both of them will have shot and been shot at too many times to count, but in the end it is not the speed of the bullet that matters - it is the way in which you choose to heal.(Not that either of them realise that at first.)"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'We are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"





	1. prologue: long-limbed animals

It had been years since the last time Javier Fernández had worn a suit.

Standing in front of the polished mirror in his foyer, Javi couldn’t help but reflect that out of all the ways to return to suits, he perhaps would not have chosen his present situation.

The suit itself was impeccable, of course: three-piece summer wool, bespoke tailoring ensuring that the black fabric effortlessly flattered Javi’s considerable assets. (Modesty was a virtue Javi possessed only in moderation.)

No, the suit was perfect. It was what came with it that unsettled Javier; the _what_ being, among other things, the gun holstered against his skin. And his new job. And the deadly neurotoxin secreted in a hidden blade in his expensive leather loafers.  

He stepped around Andrés, who was sprawled on the floor in a heap of long legs, pink tongue lolling lazily after the morning’s walk.

“Be good while I’m gone,” he ordered, one foot over the threshold. “Don’t touch anything that looks expensive.”

Andrés gave him a big, toothy grin in response, and Javi could only sigh and smile back, defeated by his dog. To be fair, most of the house’s insides did not belong to Javi to begin with — he had moved in less than two days ago, and the furniture, all dark wood and elegant varnish, had been provided by Stéphane. 

The door to the tailor shop yielded easily before Javi, as did the entrance to the sleek, posh train, familiar territory easily retraced. The polished doors to the boardroom were much more forbidding, sleek mahogany repelling him like a force field. Javi took a deep breath, set his hand over the handle, and pushed. The heavy wood swung inwards on soundless hinges, and Kingsman lay open before him.

Bedivere, Javi was pleased to see, had saved a seat for him at the end of the long table. He took it, and the other agent immediately leaned in to adjust Javi’s sleeves, playing noisily with the emerald cufflinks.

“Arthur’s not in a good mood,” Stéphane Lambiel, alias Bedivere, confided under his breath. Javi met his mentor’s eyes, unusually serious without their usual laugh lines. “Drink brandy, look sharp, and say nothing.”

Arthur had called a full meeting, and Javi watched as they filed into the room one by one, taking their respective seats. The Percival siblings sat across from Javi, Alex nodding to him before turning to confer quietly with his sister.

Arthur arrived last, striding across the length of the room, which straightened further with every click of her heels against the marble floor. By the time she was seated at the head, the table was at full attention.

“Commence,” Arthur ordered, and her voice rang like struck steel. Glasses on, Javi was able to see the holograms of physically absent agents filling the gaps in the chairs. There was a strange expression on Arthur’s face, pensive yet determined. She did not, indeed, look to be in a particularly good mood.

“A toast to our new Galahad,” Arthur continued more quietly, raising her glass before her. “May he be successful in his objectives, and as dignified, capable, and worthy of his role as the Galahad before him. 

Javi drank to his own health along with the rest of the agents. The brandy burned on the way down like a baptism, searing into his bloodstream. _Galahad._  

“Now that the toast is complete, we may begin our official session. To all in the field, I want your mission updates directly after the meeting. Anyone requisitioning new supplies, weapons or otherwise, may speak to Weir in the tailor shop and he will see to your needs, provided that they are reasonable. If they are not reasonable, quit wasting his time. Caradoc, Kingsman has a contact in Canada relevant to your next mission. Contact Orser in Toronto and he will put you through.” 

Arthur paused, her dark eyes scanning the room. Some agents shifted uncomfortably under the weight of her gaze; when Javi met her eyes, he felt as pinned and exposed as a butterfly. Arthur—Yuna Kim, although calling her by her real name was an easy path to an ignominious end—had been a part of Kingsman since she was a teenager, and she wore power like guns wore their bullets, gleaming and primed to kill. 

“Our next order of business is an important one. If you are dreaming about having another two fingers of the brandy, I suggest you cease immediately.”

Arthur’s fingers twitched at the end of her armrest, and the screen set into the room’s antique wallpaper buzzed to life to reveal a face that made his blood run cold.

“Evan Lysacek was Galahad until his sudden death five months ago. As the dead do not come back to life, however untimely and inconvenient their absence, we put forth proposals for his replacement and our current Galahad was ultimately selected.” Arthur’s eyes cut to his again before returning to the man displayed on the screen. “However, as all present are well aware, Lysacek’s passing was not without mystery. A healthy man dying from illness at only twenty-five years of age is suspicious whether or not he is a Kingsman agent, and Evan had not been on a mission for six months prior to his death.”

“You don’t get to work _here_ without making a few enemies along the way,” said Tristan darkly as the rest of the table murmured amongst themselves.  

“Precisely,” agreed Arthur. “We suspected foul play as a matter of course, but nothing has been conclusively proven, and the case has been declared closed by the police who are, as ever, incompetent fools.” 

“And since when,” put in Stéphane, “have we ever listened to Scotland Yard?”

Arthur smiled at that, one end of her mouth hooked viciously.

“Never.”

 

* * *

 

“So,” said Stéphane, long legs crossed at the ankles on Javi’s living room sofa, “what did you think of your first Kingsman meeting?”

“Arthur is terrifying,” Javi replied flatly.

Stéphane threw his head back and laughed. “You should put a piano up against that wall,” he advised, pointing to the empty space across from them where Andrés was laying.

“I don’t even play piano.”

“It’s all for appearances’ sake, Javier. It might even give you an excuse to learn!”

“Arthur’s power is definitely not _for appearances’ sake_.”

Stéphane’s mouth twisted sly and amused. “Oh, it runs truer than that, you’re right. But I’d eat my hat if her display today wasn’t at least a little deliberate. It was your first time, so you wouldn’t know, but Arthur isn’t always so open with her authority.”

Javi frowned. “Stop speaking in riddles. It doesn’t make you sound any smarter, just more confusing. Why would Arthur need to flaunt her power today, in front of all her bloody allies—” Oh. _Oh_.

Stéphane was watching him very carefully. “Unless,” Javi began slowly, “she doesn’t think we’re all allies. Unless she suspects Lysacek’s death to be at the hands of a double agent, and wants to intimidate them into making a mistake by announcing that they haven’t got away with it yet. It was an open challenge. A declaration of war.” That was a dangerous thought. It was all very well and good for a known quantity to murder Galahad, but the fluctuating variable of an unknown teammate trying to kill him was another matter entirely.

“I’d keep your eyes peeled,” said Stéphane, voice deceptively airy. “And don’t worry about Arthur. Only a fool would think you the bad egg.”

Javi cast his mind back on the morning’s meeting, remembering how carefully he had catalogued all the agents. There had been a rattle of sound after Arthur’s proclamation, everyone talking over each other to be heard. Javi scanned the table in his mind’s eye: himself at the end, the Percivals across from him, Stéphane, tall blonde Caradoc, wild-haired Tristan, up to Arthur at the head with Lancelot and Mordred flanking her. Try as he might, Javi couldn’t see any of them as being false, but that was the reality of it. One way or another, one of them was a snake in a suit. And if Javi wanted to keep his head, well, he’d better at least have a good guess. 

“Stéphane,” Javi found himself saying, “run through all the agents with me again?”

Bedivere grinned, rising with a practiced, languid grace. “It would be my absolute pleasure. Follow me.”

Javi trailed his mentor to the blank wall opposite, Andrés getting up to circle curiously at their heels. Stéphane rapped sharply against the wall. Dash, dot, dash—Morse code for _K_ ; _K_ for _Kingsman_ —and the wall scrolled smoothly open to reveal a large touch screen with what looked like…lineages? Heraldry?

“I took the liberty of installing this when I had your house furnished,” Stéphane explained to an open-mouthed Javi. “Any organisation with as much history and legacy as ours comes with its own share of baggage and intrigue, and I thought it would be useful to you to learn where you and your position stand relative to the whole.”

Javi forced his jaw shut. “And when, exactly, were you planning to show this to me?” he demanded.

“Javier,” Stéphane tutted, “why else would I suggest you place a piano there knowing you don’t play? Then again, maybe a piano is too cumbersome. How do you feel about a painting? Dalí is much too on the nose, but a nice Sorolla one would work just fine—”

“ _Stéphane_.”

“Fine! Not my fault you don’t appreciate art. I suppose I’ll just have to choose one for you.” Stéphane heaved a long-suffering sigh and swiped the screen to reveal an image of the boardroom table. Only three seats were labelled: Arthur’s, Lancelot’s to her right, and Mordred’s to her left. 

“Now, Kingsman was founded by a gaggle of wealthy aristocrats who lost their heirs in the First World War, _et cetera_ , _et cetera_. Unimportant. What _is_ important is the hierarchy – the pecking order, if you will. Arthur is at the top, of course, but directly below her are Lancelot and Mordred, usually considered our top operatives.” Stéphane brought up a window with images and biographies of all the agents. “Our own Arthur was a Lancelot back in the day; her empty spot was succeeded by Mao, the current Lancelot. Mordred is less well known as Evgeni Plushenko, the son of Soviet defectors. He has been Mordred for longer than I have known of Kingsman’s existence, but truthfully I think his ego is just as inflated as his tenure. The rest of us are more or less the same; take care not to look at that picture of Dai for too long or his haircut will make you go blind.”

Ignoring his mentor's prattle, Javi pulled up his own (impressively short) biography on the screen. _Javier Fernández López, GALAHAD, b. 15 April 1991. Born in Madrid, recruited in Dublin by BEDIVERE upon loss of predecessor Evan Lysacek. Languages: Spanish, English. Successful missions: 0. Failed missions: 0._

“It might be a good idea to put a painting here after all,” Javi admitted reluctantly. “A tapestry. A dartboard. _Something_. Hell, do all agents have this?”

“No, I had to, ah, persuade Johnny to set it up for you and me as a favour.” Stéphane looked down at Javi with warm affection. “It is, after all, a compliment to me as a mentor that my first student turned out so well. I can’t very well let you get yourself killed after all my efforts." 

“Right,” Javi retorted dryly. “Seducing your boyfriend into installing a screen must’ve been so difficult and distasteful for you, I’m surprised you have enough energy left to walk and talk.”

His mentor winked. “Javi, just between the two of us, I am not the one having difficulty walking.”

Javi choked on empty air. “Jesus.” He rubbed at his eyes. “Jesus, I don't need to hear about your sex life. I need some space to process. Get out of my house.”

“Not Jesus, I’m afraid,” Stéphane sang, already on his way out. “But close enough!”

Truth be told, Javi thought as he locked the door behind Stéphane and returned to the living room, he preferred Bedivere when he wasn’t high off sex, art, and good old-fashioned infighting. Javi sat down heavily on the couch, one hand tangled in his dog’s wiry fur while he stared down the screen still displaying his face like an old enemy. He had just finished his training as a full-fledged agent – no way in hell was he suited for dismantling the murderous intrigue behind an intelligence organisation older than his grandfather. All he could do was spy and shoot and look good in suits, the former two skills having been acquired only extremely recently.

And yet. It was quite literally his fucking job description to do so, handed down to him by a frankly fearsome boss who, despite the fact that she was about five foot negative one hundred and weighed less than god’s own soul, could eviscerate him with a single pinky nail. No, she could probably do it with just a _fucking_ thought. Fuck. 

“Bollocks,” he said aloud, feeling dizzy and overwhelmed. “I need a drink. And a lawyer. And a new will.” His gun was a dangerous damning weight against his ribcage, a potent reminder of who he was now supposed to be—who he had now _become_.

 _Galahad_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few words:
> 
> The story title comes from Louise Glück's "Vita Nova" and the chapter title comes from Rebecca Lindenberg's "Litany".
> 
> Kingsman agents are all Knights of the Round Table. The full list of who's who is as follows:
> 
> ARTHUR - Yuna  
> GALAHAD - Javi  
> TRISTAN - Dai  
> PERCIVAL - Shibutanis  
> LANCELOT - Mao  
> MORDRED - Plushenko  
> CARADOC - Caro  
> BEDIVERE - Stéphane
> 
> Warning: This starts out kind of campy but it's going to dive into some nice deep existential angst. I'm looking at maybe 10 (?) chapters but I'm not sure yet; future chapters will be longer than this one, which is just a prologue. I'm also definitely not British in the slightest (whereas Kingsman is very much so), so if there are any errors in the writing that should be corrected please do drop me a line, and thanks for reading!


	2. of thunder, in my ears

“If I die,” said Javi, “Patrick Chan gets my dog.”

“ _Firstly_ ,” Bedivere replied through the comms, “ _you’re not going to die. Secondly, you’ve been saying that before every mission for four years now. It’s in your will, Galahad. In writing._ ”

“Patrick gets my dog,” Javi repeated. “My sister takes my house along with everything in it, and I’d like to be buried in Madrid. Can you scatter my ashes at a _Los Blancos_ football game? I know we have connections in Spain; I’m responsible for establishing half of them.”

“ _If you don’t shut up, I’ll scatter your ashes at the fucking ballet._ ”

Javi laughed out loud. “Thought you said I wasn’t going to die.”

He tuned out his mentor’s irritated rambling in his ear and continued driving towards his destination. In the moonlight, the surface of the Tokyo docks after rain looked like an oil spill, the black slick of the road dissolving into the waters of the bay. The October air was unseasonably chill even inside the vehicle, and Javi was glad for the warmth of his mohair jacket. If he needed another distraction from the cold, well, there was always the possibility of his impending doom.

“ _Galahad_ ,” Stéphane was serious again, and his voice sounded strained and earnest over the comms line. “ _Listen. I don’t want to jinx you, but in the event that something does go wrong, I—I want you to know that I am very proud of you. You have had a harder time in Kingsman than perhaps any agent before you, and I can’t promise much but if you do end up dying today, I’ll hunt that bastard down to the ends of the earth. I could never have asked for a better student._ ”

Javi’s eyes stung. “Don’t get yourself killed trying to avenge me, old man,” he joked around the lump in his throat. Both of them disregarded the crack in his voice. “Everyone knows your skill hasn’t increased with age.”

“ _To hell with you too_ ,” Stéphane said pleasantly. “ _Now remember, it’s the third warehouse from the end of the boardwalk. Whoever it is we’ve been looking for all this time will likely have plans awaiting you inside.”_

Deep breaths. “Right. Okay.” In actuality he was not at all okay. Scared shitless would have been more apt, but more than scared, he was angry. Javi had been chasing the ghost of his would-be murderer for a quadrennium, startling at sudden sounds and double-guessing all the words spoken under the Kingsman K. He was sick and tired of looking around every corner before walking, fed up with not being able to trust anything but himself and his gun and the crackle of Stéphane’s comms in his ear. As he checked his magazines and stepped out of the car, Javi felt frustration rise up in him like acid. _Enough_. No matter what, it would all end tonight.

“ _You’re all clear_.” Bedivere was sombre again. “ _Go chase the grail, Galahad_.”

The warehouse was a metal monstrosity, its skeleton of concrete and steel yawning above Javi, depthless and liquid. A shard of moonlight slivered down through a hole in the roof, illuminating jagged edges and exposed drywall. Puddles from the day’s rain stretched greedily on the floor, fingers of water shining wet and alien. His glasses and the flashlight embedded into the buttonhole of his jacket helped his vision adjust, but Javi still tread with care on the rotting floorboards. He tried not to cough, breathing shallowly as he moved deeper into the building. Asbestos dust was a bitch at the best of times, painful at worst, and a carcinogen always.

“ _Why, do you think_ ,” Stéphane mused, “ _would a perfectly respectable Kingsman agent—double agent, as it were—set up base in this kind of place? Most of us are quite fond of our luxuries_.”

 _Anonymity_ , thought Javi, but he didn’t dare voice his opinion aloud. It would be hard to suspect a top British operative in this seedy cell block. Four years had been spent tracking this exact location down, and the unbelievability of it had contributed greatly to its disguise. Javi would stab himself on one of the plentiful rusty beams present before he would ever be called classist, but even he did not approve of choosing the warehouse as a home base. Appearances were appearances, and they had to be maintained to lend one’s endeavours credibility.

Ahead of Javi, dust motes suspended in the dead air ahead stirred in the beam of his flashlight. He froze, senses sharpening while his fingers tightened reflexively on the grip of his gun.

“Galahad.” The too-familiar timbre of his nemesis’s voice echoed through the warehouse. “I was wondering how long it would take you to find me.”

Light shifted. A man stepped out of the shadows, and Javier’s world rewrote itself.

He wouldn’t believe it. He _couldn’t_ believe it. Javi had spent hours preparing himself for the certain knowledge that the person aiming to take his life was among the ones he sat and drank and fought with at the long table in the Kingsman boardroom, but the sucker punch of reality was more intense than anything Javi could have imagined.

He had to speak. Every moment spent remaining silent was a step closer to surrender.

“Tristan,” said Javi, and the name was a damnation.

Daisuke Takahashi spread his hands. “In the flesh.”

Some part of Javi could not reconcile the smug smile on Takahashi’s face with the messy-haired agent he had thought his friend. Some part of Javi was screaming in disbelief. Most of him was working on autopilot, muscle memory from training and missions kicking in at the most critical moment.

“It makes sense.” Javi managed to sound much more confident than he felt. “A Japanese agent, working from Japan…tell me, Dai, does your Kingsman status give you credit with the local yakuza, or does it repel them from you?”

Tristan tilted his head, much too feline a gesture to look suitable on his easygoing features. Then again, everything had just been flipped upside down. Javi would never describe the other man as _easygoing_ after this. _Traitorous_ , more likely. _Fucking viper_ would be best.

“Do you want to know why I’ve appeared before you like this? Shown all my cards?” Tristan’s smirk stretched. “It’s because I know you won’t hurt me. You haven’t enough nerve.”

“Try me,” Javi growled. The anger was burning inside him again, hotter than ever before. “I’ll shoot that mouth right off your face.”

Takahashi took a step closer to him. Stéphane was going off again through the comms, colourful and highly explicit.

Javi did not shoot.

“Don’t worry,” Tristan said, falsely reassuring. “It will only hurt for a second.”

He took another step forward, close enough for Javi to see the grosgrain of Takahashi’s peaked lapels, the posh flip of his hair. Both of them were so out of place here, with their obscenely expensive clothes and toys and arrogant words. _Strangers in a strange land_ , Javi thought, and suddenly it was all too much.

The punch of two silenced rounds ricocheted loyally back into Galahad’s gloved hand. Tristan’s expression did not change as the bullets flew, a _one-two_ beat, and sank easily—

(“ _What_ ,” said a dumbstruck Stéphane, “ _the fuck_.”)

—into the wall behind him.

The other man disappeared amidst a puff of drywall and the routine buzz of a dismantling hologram. For a second, Javi could only stand and stare at the spot where a living, breathing, _real as fuck_ man had just been before dissolving into blue electricity.

“ _Oh, shit_.” Stéphane sounded panicked. Dimly, beneath the numb veil of shock, Javi agreed with the sentiment. “ _Galahad, watch out!_ ”

Muscle memory saved him again as Javi leapt to the side, cursing when a hidden shaft of metal tore a bloody strip from his triceps. He backed up against a grimy industrial window, gun cocked and adrenaline pounding through his system as another man stepped into the fractured moonlight. 

“Kingsman glasses look complicated, but they’re actually quite simple,” said Mordred. “So easy to hack and make you see things that aren’t really there.”

The self-satisfied smile and spreading of hands so much more suited Evgeni Plushenko than Daisuke Takahashi.

“Unfortunately, my friend, our charade ends here. It has been fun playing with you these past four years, I admit. Especially entertaining to witness the speed with which you turned on Tristan. How quickly friendship fades in the face of betrayal.” Plushenko examined his cuticles leisurely. “It might reassure you to know that the real Daisuke in no way intends you harm, but you have been looking so hard for an opponent, how could I not satisfy you? Have no fear, little Galahad. I am here, I am not a programmed fake, and I am very much your enemy.” 

Javi took off his glasses with his free hand, and Mordred vanished. _Damn, another hologram_. He tried to be inconspicuous about looking frantically for an exit path. Meanwhile, Plushenko was eyeing him like a hunter considering a fine haunch of venison. “You have certainly proven to be much more resilient than I initially predicted, and I must say I will miss you greatly. Nonetheless, I have run out of patience. It is time for the line of Galahad to end.”

“Nice speech,” Javi deadpanned, and pretended his voice wasn’t shaking. He was losing this battle, and losing quickly. He could feel it in the way the equilibrium of the conversation slipped from his control with every breath. The grip of his gun was fast becoming slippery with the blood trailing down his arm, but to switch hands was to expose his weakness. “I’m over it, though. How about you just tell me why you’ve been doing all this and what you have against me? I’d rather not kill you without giving you a chance to confess first.” 

Plushenko’s lip curled. “You ask me why I hate Galahad? Where do I start? I tried to warn Arthur, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it. No one would ever see the issue like I did, and so no one would ever listen to me. You see, Fernández, you—you and Lysacek both and every Galahad before you, all of you like a colony of rats—you come from dirt. You come from Spain and lived in Dublin, god forbid, not even proper England, and you had the guts to waltz into Kingsman and wear suits worth more than your entire family history like you could ever belong, like power could ever be something you get to _grow into_!

“No, I’m afraid you can’t learn privilege. You can’t replace sheer class with a half-assed accent and delusions of grandeur. Your like, all you Galahads and all your tainted blood, will poison Kingsman from the inside out. So,” Mordred widened his stance, as menacing as any demon, “I’m afraid it’s time to say goodbye. Don’t fret, darling. Again, it will only hurt for a second.”

The mocking tone of the endearment made Javi’s blood run hot again. “And what?” he demanded. “You think you’re just going to be able to get rid of me and Kingsman will take you back as a hero? You think Arthur will welcome you with open arms? You’re insane, Plushenko. Kill me and they will just find a replacement. Kill me and nothing will change.”

Mordred snarled. “You wrong me if you think I intend to return to Kingsman after this. I have no use for staying hidden any longer when my absence would itself make the matter clear. But make no mistake: If they are stupid enough to reinstate another one of your kind, I will simply kill them again, as I did to your predecessor. You are out of your depth here, little Galahad. I am Mordred, second to only Arthur herself! There is no version of the story in which you do not die here.”

Enough. _Enough_. “You’ve tortured me for four years,” said Javi, and his voice no longer shook when he took aim. “Hologram or no hologram, real or imaginary, I am not the one who will be dying today.”

Plushenko only smiled even more widely and reached inside his trouser pocket as time stretched, dripping to a stop with the agonizing slowness of molasses. Mordred’s bare, pale hand withdrew from his pocket holding a small trigger, and realization washed over Javi with a bolt of white-hot clarity. 

“ _Get the_ fuck _out of there_ —” Stéphane was shouting in his ear, a roar of urgency like a roll of thunder. Javi fired a shot, but it was just noise compared to Plushenko’s grin when he set off the bomb, his smile as thin and manic as the crescent moon overhead. Then he ran to get clear, turning his shoulder against the window and diving into the cold Tokyo bay as the warehouse exploded overhead.

 

* * *

 

Out of all the things Yuzuru Hanyu might have imagined seeing washed up on the waterfront at night, rusted metal debris was not high on the list.

A drowned man was even lower.

Upon further inspection, the man was not quite drowned, but getting there at an alarming rate. He was also bleeding profusely from what looked to be a shrapnel wound in his right arm.

Yuzuru was anything but stupid, and it was immediately clear to him that this handsome foreigner definitely had something to do with the warehouse explosion just a few blocks around the corner. He was also not incapable of defending himself against a potential threat, but he preferred not to resort to violence unless utterly necessary.

 _Save lives first_ , he decided over the mixed apprehension and curiosity bubbling up inside him. _Ask questions later_.

 

* * *

 

Javi woke to sharp pain in his breastbone and wet crackling in his ear. _Ah_. There was a man performing CPR on him. The pain made sense now. He sat up, dislodging whoever was responsible for saving his life before he broke a few ribs, and winced as he coughed up the water still stuck in his lungs. His shoes were gone, his holsters empty. He’d lost his glasses somewhere along the way.

His saviour turned out to be a slim Japanese man, no one Javi recognized. A civilian, not law enforcement, college-age by the looks of him, built long and lithe like a dancer. Javi stood with as much dignity as he can muster. The stranger was watching him closely, his head tilted like a bird’s.

“ _Arigato_ ,” Javi rasped. Damn, his voice was wrecked. Every syllable grated painfully on his salt-raw throat. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Japanese. English?”

“English is fine,” answered the man. His eyebrows had a worried cast, but the rest of him was cautious. “My name is Yuzuru Hanyu. Are you alright? Do you need me to call the police?”

 _Police_. Fuck. Javi closed his eyes; he could hear sirens not far off. He didn’t want to have to explain to local authorities what he’d been doing all alone in a warehouse that had subsequently exploded. The Kingsman name didn’t carry as much weight outside of Europe, and Javi wasn’t sure he could trust his identity to get him off easy this time.

“I’m well, no need to call the police. Thank you for saving me. I probably owe you my life.” Courtesy, at least, he could manage. Javi bowed to the man—Yuzuru—and unclipped the lapel pin from his sodden jacket, offering it to the man. “This is going to sound awfully mysterious, but if you ever find yourself in need of a favour, call the number engraved on the back and repeat the code _oxfords, not brogues_. We’ll help you out.”

Yuzuru Hanyu accepted the pin, but Yuzuru Hanyu still arched an eyebrow and looked at Javi skeptically. “You don’t have shoes,” he pointed out. “I should be the one helping you. You cannot go anywhere without shoes.”

“I have a car,” said Javi. “I’m grateful to you, but—”

“Is the car parked next to the warehouse? The one that exploded?” The tilt to Hanyu’s head had become knowing. “It’s almost definitely shredded. Even if it isn’t, the whole place is crawling with police.”

 _Oh_. This was a checkmate, as sure as the one Plushenko had set upon him in the warehouse. Both times outgunned so easily, both conversations traps. Javi’s cards had been taken from him and shown around the table without him even knowing it.

“Why can’t you just take your reward and leave?” Javi spoke with difficulty around the cotton in his mouth. He did not know the man before him. A name meant nothing. Yuzuru Hanyu was a stranger, and a newly dangerous one. Javi itched for his guns, not trusting his body to win a physical fight with the shape he was in.

The angle to Hanyu’s chin shifted imperceptibly. He was maddeningly difficult to read. “I’m curious.”

Curious. Fine. Enough. Javi slumped in defeat, blood loss making him dizzy. This man had saved his life already, and if he ended up killing Javi tonight, turnabout was still fair play. 

“I have a safe house in Shinjuku. Can you take me there?”

 

* * *

 

There was grief in the set of Arthur’s mouth, if one knew where to look.

It was more expression than Javi had seen from her in years.

Arthur rapped the table, and everyone else flinched. “Glasses on,” she ordered, as cool and implacable as ever.

Javi slid on his glasses and stared down the espresso in front of him. He didn’t dare look diagonally across the table to where Tristan—the _real_ Tristan, not Plushenko’s digitalized fake—was sitting, and he dared even less to try his vision on the abyss to Arthur’s left. Mordred’s absence was a wound as visceral as the own throbbing in Javi’s upper arm.

“Evgeni Plushenko is no longer Mordred,” Arthur stated. “If you are wondering as to the reason why, he tried to blow up Galahad in a warehouse last weekend and nearly framed Tristan for it. In doing so, he admitted to perpetrating the death of former Galahad Evan Lysacek. All of this is on record to be listened to at discretion, thanks to Bedivere. Luckily, neither the blowing up or the framing succeeded, and I have alerted Interpol to put out a worldwide search warrant. The technology hack Plushenko performed on Kingsman glasses has been identified and stamped out by Weir, who assures me that all remaining equipment is safe to use.”

Arthur paused. The mournful twist to her mouth crystallized, then hardened. 

“We will drink no brandy for Plushenko. Kingsman will drink nothing for traitors but blood. I expect your candidates for Mordred by midnight at the latest or you forfeit your right to recommend a replacement.” Arthur’s eyes reflected the light of the boardroom chandelier like black diamonds. Javi’s own hurt to see them. 

“Dismissed.”

 

* * *

 

 “I never liked Constructivism,” Stéphane remarked, gesturing elegantly at the Rodchenko creation (an original, brought back from a Moscow mission by the Percivals as a housewarming gift) leering down from Javi’s wall. They were, as ever after a meeting, lounging in Javi’s living room. Andrés, banished from his spot on the sofa, was sitting prim and miffed by their feet.

Javi snorted. “You’re just saying that because Plushenko almost bombed the shit out of me.”

“No,” said Stéphane, “I’ve never liked it. I just refrained from saying so because I could tell you did.”

“I still _do_ like it,” Javi rectified. He toasted the painting with his glass of scotch and knocked the alcohol back before glancing at his mentor out of the corner of his eye. “Will you be proposing a candidate this time? I could do with more company.”

“No.” Stéphane’s voice was, Javi felt in his slightly tipsy state of mind, entirely too grim for the occasion. “Look what a mess I caused with you.”

“I resent your implication.”

“Of course you do.” Stéphane sighed with the weight of worlds. “You’re a fine agent, Javi, and I meant what I said when I told you I couldn’t have asked for a better student. I was proud of you when you made Galahad, I promised you a better life, and what came of that? Four years of suffering, and we’re only set for more. I won’t risk putting that burden on someone else.”

Javi turned fully away from the painting, sobered. “None of this is your fault, Stéphane. You know you’ve been an amazing mentor.”

“Have I? Perhaps.” Stéphane put a comforting hand on Javi’s shoulder, ending the topic of conversation. “You recommend someone, then, in my place. Put forth that pretty Japanese fellow who saved your life.”

“Hanyu? Stéphane, he manipulated me into revealing my safe house and half my identity!”

“Exactly,” said Stéphane. “He’s intelligent, skilled, and composed. He also bandaged your arm and _drove you_ to your safe house.”

“How we got there hardly matters—”

“Moreover, he’s absolutely beautiful and he lives in London.”

“What?” No. Not possible.

“He’s an international student, just graduated from University College London on a full scholarship. Originally from Sendai, Japan, couldn’t find much about his family but it looks like he arrived here alone after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.” Stéphane smirked triumphantly at a gaping Javi. “I told you he was intelligent.”

“What the _fuck_.”

“At least consider it, won’t you, Javier? He’s gotten this close to us already, might as well bring him into the fold.”

Late that night, long after Stéphane left, Javi removed the Rodchenko painting and activated his hidden screen. Its electronic light lit up the otherwise dark living room as Javi scrolled through the list of agents. It had refreshed itself quickly: Mordred’s spot on the screen was already empty, a glaring absence in the lineup. He swiped over Tristan’s profile, fresh guilt trickling through him at the sight, to select his own. Bypassing his biography, Javi clicked on another item from the list.

_GALAHAD – COMMON TRAITS:_

_Loyal, focused, and dedicated, it has often been said that GALAHAD agents come from more hardship than the rest, either through different family backgrounds or personal struggles.  Successful GALAHAD agents, however, persevere through difficulty to arrive at their goal. The position takes its name from legendary knight Galahad the Pure, who through myriad challenges stayed true to himself and finally achieved the Holy Grail. Excellent in the field, what they lack in subtlety they make up for in integrity. Renowned GALAHADs include: Oksana Baiul, Michelle Kwan (later ARTHUR). Current GALAHAD: Javier Fernández López._

There was an unpleasant ringing in Javi’s ears. He thought back unbidden to the silent drive to Shinjuku, a hasty bandage over his arm and the iron-salt taste of ocean water in his mouth. The neon colouring of the city at night had cast Yuzuru Hanyu’s face into sharp relief, cheekbone and jaw rife with plateaus of light and valleys of shadow. The light had caressed Hanyu’s hands as they rested steadily on the wheel, Tokyo blurring fluorescent on Javi’s other side.

Those same long-fingered hands had wrapped the gauze neatly around Javi’s wound, clinically efficient in the way of long practice. In reply to Javi’s questioning glance Hanyu had only murmured that his friends liked to get into fights and returned an inquisitive gaze of his own.

And so it was that Javi had found himself telling Hanyu his name and what he had been doing in Tokyo, glossing over the details as much as possible. He could spy no weaponry on the other man, no incriminating tattoos, nothing to suggest anything but a harmless civilian. 

Hanyu’s English was perfectly fluent, but he spoke with the peculiar intonation of someone who had trained himself out of an accent. His hands were empty, yet he moved like one who had been trained. A simple Google search, all Javi had had the energy for at the time, had pulled up nothing of import. In the end, the only thing Yuzuru Hanyu took from Javier Fernandez that night had been his lapel pin. He had had offered an international number on a piece of paper in return and left the safe house like a magician’s vanishing act, gone as suddenly as a ghost with a chameleon’s anonymity.

At present, Javier did not even remember the licence plate of the car Hanyu had driven. He strongly suspected it to be a rental. Interest stiffened and surged along his spine.

Curiosity in Tokyo had led Hanyu to corner Javi as easily as a cat corners a mouse. Curiosity now led Javi to put on a new pair of glasses and dial the number he had long since committed to memory. The line rang three times before being answered, but the receiver was silent on the other end.

“Evening,” Javi greeted casually. “Meet me outside the Kingsman tailor shop at eleven. I have a proposal I think you’ll like. Try not to be late; I will wait for only ten minutes past.”

He allowed three seconds of silence to pass before hanging up. Then he prayed to whatever lady of luck that had so long deserted him for the rest of the night to go smoothly. That he was right in believing that Yuzuru Hanyu was not dangerous—merely capable of great danger.

 

* * *

 

Standing boldly in the London street, Yuzuru Hanyu looked like some cultured animal, shoulders straight and hands hidden, dark gaze intense under a fringe of eyelashes, the shape of his shadow uneasy under the streetlamp like leaves on wet pavement. He seemed a perpetual projection, as if he would look like that whether he was in the jungle or in the theatre, in the desert or at the bottom of the ocean—nameless, faceless, insubstantial yet permanent. Javi had a sudden urge to make the man before him belong somewhere, to hand him a house and say to him: _Here. This is yours. This is home_.

Javier couldn’t hold back a twinge of morbid amusement at how unlike his own recruitment this scenario was. A Dublin bartender, all he had done was give a few thugs harassing a waitress what for, and at the end of the fight Stéphane had helped ice his jaw, complimented his right hook, and asked him how he felt about a new line of work.

Hanyu—Yuzuru, Javi reminded himself, if this was going to work they had to be on a first-name basis—spoke first.

“Mr. Fernández. What is it?” 

“Call me Javier,” he replied, and opened the door to the tailor’s. “I’d like to offer you a job.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> javi pretends to be ~artistique~ but y'know he's actually just a meme lord who likes taking long walks with his dog
> 
> The usual RPF disclaimer applies, of course, and the chapter title comes from Sappho. This chapter took a little longer to write than I wanted - I've been visiting family in China, plus a ten-day stint without my laptop and I'm just getting over a fever. I'll try my damnedest to update more often before the fall, though, so stay tuned, and thanks for reading!


	3. faith, thrum, coax, surge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for: a very very slight mention of possible sexual assault. it's barely there, or else I would have updated the tags, but just so you know. the usual RPF disclaimer applies.

To say Yuzuru Hanyu was unprepared was a bit of an understatement.

He tried not to let it show.

Javier Fernández, or, as he was in Yuzu’s mind, _drowned explosion spy_ , led him straight through the door of the Kingsman tailor shop. It was a Savile Row icon Yuzuru had walked past dozens of times, but he had never thought to look beyond its polished glass doors.

The interior was sleek, old-money beauty, walnut wood wainscoting and sepia photos of royalty. A stag’s head was mounted on the deep green walls, its antlers reflecting the golden light of the chandelier. Suits and shirts that probably cost more than a full term of Yuzu’s university tuition lined their respective windows and shelves, immaculately pressed and folded. Clocks ticked the time from cities all around the world: New York, Paris, Mumbai, Shanghai, Seoul. 

Javier led him straight across a tasteful patterned rug to an intricately carved desk, where a slim, dark-haired man was waiting.

“Here for a fitting, Galahad?” The man smiled in welcome, his bespectacled eyes sliding over them in the discreet way of memorization. The embroidered floral motif on his suit jacket smiled and winked at Yuzu, endearingly clandestine.

“We’re not quite there yet, unfortunately,” replied Javier. “Just the back room for tonight, Johnny.”

The man—Johnny—clicked his tongue. “Right. You know the way.” 

Javier nodded, already on the move. “Bedivere won’t be coming in, so don’t wait up past midnight,” he called over his shoulder. 

“Wasn’t planning on it!”

The back room was dimly lit, unremarkable except for the presence of a mirror. Yuzuru could see the two of them clearly: one slightly taller and broader than the other, one in dark tweed, the other in denim, one in control, the other relinquishing it.

It was a contrast, to say the least.

“Well,” said Yuzuru, bravado bolstering his voice, “you have me, all alone, in a room with a large mirror and only one visible exit. I’ve trusted you so far, _Galahad_. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”

Javier didn’t even flinch at the emphasis on what Yuzu thought-guessed-dreaded was a codename. He reached out instead, fingertips pressed lightly to the glass in front of him.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m offering you a job.”

“A job at the tailors doesn’t usually involve aliases.”

In the mirror, the corners of Javier’s mouth lifted.

“Then that’s probably because I’m not a tailor.”

He flattened his palm against the mirror, and the glass parted smoothly to reveal an elevator.

“Curioser and curioser,” said Yuzu. The same feeling he had had in Tokyo was rising again, mingled interest and apprehension prickling along his skin. He was briefly tempted to back out, but the moment the thought crossed his mind he realised its futility. These mysterious Kingsman headquarters were the other man’s territory, just as Tokyo had been Yuzuru’s. His life, now, was almost definitely not his own.

Javier laughed as they stepped into the lift. “Just you wait, Alice. I think you’ll find this looking glass goes deeper than you thought.”

“How is your arm?” Yuzu asked, clumsily attempting to redirect the conversation with a non sequitur. He was unable to keep from thinking that he had just landed himself inextricably into, for lack of a better term, a hot damn mess.

“Much better, thanks to you and a timely tetanus shot. Healing quickly has always been a favourite skill of mine.” Nothing of the injury was visible below Javier’s jacket, and there was no hesitation or signs of pain when he moved, so Yuzuru accepted this as the truth and fell silent.

The lift continued to descend steadily as Javier cleared his throat, as if preparing for a speech.

“The Kingsman tailors have been operating since 1849, but my particular branch of the organization only came about in 1919, after the First World War, when many of our customers had lost their heirs to senseless violence. They were, as I’m sure you can imagine, eager to donate their fortunes to our establishment. The Kingsman agency—that is, the part with, as you so fittingly put it, aliases—is independent, international, and we work in intelligence. So, in layman’s terms, spies. Our secrecy and surety are unparalleled, and as it just so happens, we have a position available.”

The doors parted at last to reveal a sleek shuttle train, its insides done up in panelling and corduroy to match the tailor shop aboveground. Yuzu sat down, feeling very much wide-eyed and out of place.

“If you have a position open,” Yuzu began slowly, “what happened to the previous agent?”

Something grim passed through Javier’s eyes. “He turned traitor.”

“He _what_?”

Javier’s face darkened even further. “His code name was Mordred, and his tenure was long and relatively distinguished before he fucked it all up. Pardon my French.”

“How? Is he still alive?” Somehow Yuzuru could not wrap his head around the idea of betrayal in such a wealthy, powerful agency.

“Four years ago, he murdered my predecessor and got away without being suspected. Since I came into the role of Galahad, he has been continuously trying to do the same for me. Of course, then he showed himself in that Tokyo warehouse, essentially declared war against Kingsman, and blew the whole thing to shreds. Arthur, our leader, removed him from the rankings and revoked his privileges, but yes, he’s still out there somewhere. There’s been a worldwide search warrant issued for him, but to be honest I don’t think he’ll have any trouble avoiding detection.” The whole story was told in one quick breath, as if the telling of it was intensely unpleasant.

“So,” Yuzuru said, “he’s still trying to kill you?”

Javier shrugged off his query, relaxed again. “Evgeni Plushenko is nothing if not persistent. But I’ve foiled him for four years, I can foil him some more. I’ve gotten enough practice at it, after all. It’s nothing you need to worry about; if I were you, I would be more concerned over your competition for his title.”

They stepped off the train into a massive station containing all sorts of fancy planes and cars, the light bouncing off chrome and sparkling glass onto the walls, then into an anonymous steel corridor. A small, vaguely terrifying woman was waiting for them at its end, holding a tablet and what looked to be a cup of coffee. Yuzuru’s apprehension strengthened again as they walked closer to her, wondering irrationally if this was some elaborate prank after all, designed to avenge him for Tokyo. _Death by corrosive espresso_ was not, in his opinion, a good way to go.

Javier stopped in front of the woman and saluted smartly. “Arthur,” he greeted.

“Galahad.” The leader of Kingsman nodded back. “I see punctuality still is not one of your many strengths.”

Javier put a hand to his heart in mock outrage. “We’re not late.”

“No,” she agreed. “Neither are you early. Everyone else has already arrived.”

“As you say, ma’am,” Javier conceded gracefully. He turned to Yuzuru and offered his hand, palm up. “Good luck,” he said. His skin was warm and dry when they shook, long fingers pressing over the pulse point in Yuzu’s wrist.

Javier smiled, as cocky and handsome as any silver screen Bond. “I have a feeling you might not need any,” he said, and then he turned and walked away.

Arthur waved Yuzu into an adjacent room, where four other young men were milling about and making small talk. It made him wonder just how formal this process would be: whether they would be directly challenging one another, how the tests would be carried out. Old habits kicked in and he found himself discreetly evaluating the room, its power dynamics, who was speaking to whom.

“Fall in,” said Arthur crisply, and the five of them stood at attention, strangely military. Arthur surveyed them with a perfect poker face before lifting a wrapped black bag.

“This,” she said, “is a body bag. Each of you will find one on your bunk. You will write your name and personal information, as well as those of your next-of-kin, on the bag. If, during the training and selection process, you are unable to hold yourself to the standard of secrecy expected of you, you will end up in this body bag, along with your next-of-kin. There will be no lies. There will be no smokescreens. Understood?”

Yuzuru swallowed, thoughts flashing back to his parents and sister at home in Japan. The meaning was more than clear: Yuzu, regardless of whether or not he was chosen to become the next Mordred, would keep Kingsman’s secrets to his grave. If not, his grave would come to him and his family. He might not have been the ideal son, but he would never bring harm upon his loved ones. In this matter, there was no choice at all.

He also couldn’t help but wonder about Plushenko, and the consequences in store for him if he was located and brought to justice. Arthur’s voice betrayed no emotion, as still and cold as dead water, but it was obvious that whatever happened to the previous Mordred, it wouldn’t be pretty.

 Arthur did not wait for them to nod their understanding.

“Fall out,” she commanded, and turned on her heel and left.

Yuzuru moved to a bed along with the other candidates, turning over the body bag folded neatly on the sheets. He was thankful he had had the presence of mind to bring a pen as he wrote his information on it.

“Excuse me,” a soft voice came from beside him. “Could I borrow your pen after you’re done with it?”

Yuzuru turned to find a short young man hovering over the bunk beside his, with a flop of messy hair and a face that looked a few years younger than his own. Yuzu smiled at the request—no harm in being friendly—and handed over his pen, holding out his hand in the same movement.

“My name is Yuzuru,” he offered. “You can call me Yuzu.”

The young man smiled shyly back as he took the pen, but his handshake was surprisingly firm. “Shoma. It’s good to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Yuzu replied. “If you don’t mind me asking, Shoma, how did you end up here?”

“We aren’t supposed to mention our mentors,” a new voice interjected. He turned to find another boy with even curlier hair than Shoma sitting cross-legged on the bunk to Yuzu’s other side. He met Yuzu’s eyes and grinned rakishly, with a touch of sheepishness at having eavesdropped and interrupted. “But I guess it couldn’t really hurt. I’m Nathan, by the way. I was put forward by Percival.” His voice sounded vaguely American, or perhaps Canadian.

Yuzu shook his hand as well, wondering if this meant Javier was his _mentor_ now. If every other Kingsman agent was like Arthur, he wouldn’t mind Galahad. At least Javier didn’t hold every room he entered in a cold clutch of awe-inspiring authority.

“Yuzuru,” he introduced himself again. “From Galahad.”

“Tristan proposed me, but I haven’t seen any of the other agents yet. Besides Arthur just now, I mean, and we’ve all seen her.” Shoma’s mouth parted in a wide yawn. “I’m sleepy,” he mumbled. “It’s way past midnight.”

“All right, Sho, it’s time for bed,” Nathan said firmly but cheerfully. “We’re all tired, let’s make proper introductions in the morning.”

Lying in bed after lights out, listening to the steady breathing of Shoma and the shifting movements of Nathan, Yuzu opened his eyes wide into the darkness and tried to come to terms with the reality of his new life.

 _If you knew this would happen, would you have saved him?_ The question took on the familiar voices of his lost home, blending between his parents, Saya, Abe-sensei, and even the electronic stop announcers of Sendai public transport.

_Was it worth it? A different life for a salvaged one? A strange and risky life for another to cheat death?_

He didn’t know if he was happy, returning back to the draining whirl of a shadow world, with all the hidden politics and violent scheming and knives in the night he had so long eschewed. But Yuzuru had always been good at math, and the simple numerical calculation of lives was not yet beyond him.

Two were alive because he had acted at the Tokyo docks. Two alive, instead of one dead and gone.

That was worth this, this danger and uncertainty and concealment.

It had to be.

 

* * *

 

“So,” said Javier, “I think it’s time that we had a talk.” 

Yuzuru looked up across the table, where Javier met his gaze from over a steaming serving of sangria and something called _cocido madrileño_. Javier had spirited him away from the training facility just before dinner, instead taking him to an amicable, hole-in-the-wall place that he claimed boasted the best Spanish food in all of Britain. Yuzu deliberately had not mentioned that he had never had Spanish food before in his life, so he didn’t have much to compare his meal against. Dinner seemed like a concerted effort to be friendly, though, and Yuzu was newly wary of wading too deeply into the whirlpool that was the current Galahad. He had been reckless and impulsive in Japan, home turf lending him an inquisitive boldness he would not have otherwise possessed. He’d played with fire, and was still waiting for the burns.

He was going to have to cancel the internship he’d had planned until the end of the year, Yuzu thought ruefully. A Kingsman entanglement didn’t seem like the sort of thing one could detach from on short notice, and certainly without any demands attached to his withdrawal.

“About what?” Yuzu asked. There wasn’t much to discuss. The first day had been relatively straightforward, led by the agent Bedivere, with a series of physical assessments including a run, an obstacle course, and one of those multi-stage fitness beep tests that always made his asthma want to climb right up into his throat. It was at least somewhat reassuring that the others weren’t in much better shape. Yuzu had met Misha Ge in the showers while both of them were trying desperately to catch their breath, and the last recruit, Boyang, had messed up the final section of the obstacle course rather badly.

Javier hummed. “Oh, many things. Let’s start with you, though. If I’m to be your mentor, I should have a full understanding of who you are as a person and an agent.”

“Don’t you know everything about me already?”

“Well,” Javi said, twirling his fork, “let’s see. Yuzuru Hanyu, born December 7, 1994 in Sendai, Japan. A figure skater, and doing very well on the circuit too, until you quit in 2011 after the Tohoku Earthquake destroyed your home rink and devastated your country. A _summa cum laude_ graduate of University College London with a double major in statistics and computer science, my sources tell me your family currently resides in Tokyo.” He fixed Yuzuru with a piercing stare.

“Does that sound like everything to you? I have information about your life prior to London, but any details after you started university are non-existent. I’m a _spy_ , Yuzu. I know what a deliberate cover-up looks like.”

Yuzu turned to stare at the yellow checkered curtain that separated their booth from the rest of the restaurant. He could hear the muffled noise of other patrons outside, the light casting a lemony glow on their table as it came through the curtain. He could feel the heat of the alcohol snaking down into his stomach, ridding him of his better judgment. The leather of the seat was cracked and cool under his hand.

As was, in many ways, his heart.

“I don’t recall asking you to call me Yuzu.”

It was better if he kept some distance, whatever relationship they had. Javier Fernández had a peculiar magnetism to him, a rip current in calm waters ready to drag and drown the unwary. Yuzuru had fallen victim to his undertow once before, in Tokyo. He was determined to guard against it now.

Javier took a sip of his drink. “You let Shoma Uno refer to you in that way, and you’ve known him for less than twenty-four hours. Given our rather more extensive history, I would’ve thought the same extended to me.” He smiled, suddenly, a toothy ingénue. “But fair’s fair. If I call you Yuzu, you must call me Javi, and vice versa. And I do insist on being called Javi.”

Could he give in? Would he? Did it even matter in the end? Javier Fernández was a much better conversationalist when he wasn’t eighty percent drowned and bleeding out. Yuzuru had the sinking feeling that he would be wrapped around Galahad’s little finger eventually, no matter how much he resisted at present.

“I faced…difficulties after arriving in London alone,” Yuzu said at last. “Challenges, antagonism. I received help to let me deal with them.”

“Help?”

“Tutelage.” 

“Tutelage by whom?”

Yuzu made a flippant gesture, as nonchalant as he could make himself appear. “People. I shouldn’t expose them without permission, but it was all legal. I’m not a criminal, I wasn’t in gangs. I don’t have the skill set for it.” He hadn’t exactly walked on the thin and narrow, that much was true, but he didn’t need to say that to imply it.

“What do you mean?” Javier pressed, eyes piercing. “I imagine there are numerous ways to become a criminal if one wishes it.”

“No,” said Yuzuru, his tone as firm as he could make it, “The difference is that I do not wish it. I have never wished it. And as I said, I truly don’t possess the necessary traits to become a successful criminal, which my common sense tells me is the only type of criminal worth being.”

“And what traits, then, do you suppose are necessary to become a successful criminal?”

Yuzu took a breath of the lemon-tinted air, and repeated to himself, _two lives. Two lives instead of one._

“I don’t like violence,” he stated baldly. “I don’t like subterfuge, I don’t like lying. I don’t like hurting other people or watching others get hurt. I’ve never managed to learn how to be cruel. I would be terrible at leading a life of crime even if I wanted to, and god knows I don’t.”

His mentor was still watching him.

“That’s all for now?” Javier asked quietly.

“That’s all,” Yuzu repeated. He didn’t say _for now_.

To his surprise, the other man merely shrugged and returned to his food. “Fine. Have it your way, mystery man. I will say this, though. All the traits you mentioned as being ideal for a criminal? They also happen to make the perfect spy.”

They spent the rest of the meal in silence.

 

* * *

 

After Javier dropped Yuzuru off at the training estate, he took a wandering detour south again into the city, driving towards Tottenham. It was already past midnight when he reached his destination, mind trailing through and analyzing the past day in as much detail as he could.

He had been anticipating Yuzu’s prickly reaction to being referred to by a nickname, but not his obvious unease in Javi’s presence. His student had done well in his first day of training, and seemed to interact quite comfortably with the rest of the candidates—in fact, he seemed to be already friendly with at least Shoma Uno. The cool, competent man from Tokyo had been evasive and unclear in London, and Javi had only allowed it because he didn’t want to push his advantage too far. It seemed, on the surface, that Yuzuru Hanyu was having second thoughts about joining Kingsman, and yet his deft handling of training suggested otherwise.

The contradictions were giving Javi a headache.

Their situation was like an inverse of what Javi remembered from Tokyo, down to the fact that it had been him in the driver’s seat instead of Yuzuru. A mirror image: now it was Javier who was the pursuer, and Yuzuru who was being pursued. Just what secrets was he hiding? What had led him to follow Javi into Kingsman in the first place? More of the same damning curiosity?

The place he was looking for lay in northern London, and Javier slid on his glasses and attached his comms in his ear as he drove.

“ _Galahad? Come in._ ” As ever, Bedivere was waiting on the other side. Javi spared a moment to feel a rush of affection for his mentor. He had anticipated less familiar backup tonight, maybe the Percivals or even Caradoc.

“Bedivere,” he greeted warmly. “Shouldn’t you be watching our candidates sleep or something?”

Stéphane blew out a breath that rasped across the line. “ _I’ve watched them all day, let me do something else for a change. I might be the only one who hasn’t proposed a replacement for Mordred, but that doesn’t mean I signed up to blow whistles and lead runs.”_

“You like the teaching,” said Javi. “Don’t lie.”

“Obviously I don’t mind the teaching,” Bedivere retorted. “I’m an excellent teacher, as you can attest.”

Javi could imagine Stéphane perched at his desk, an array of screens and a cappuccino spread out before him, blue light illuminating the growing lines around his serious eyes. Yes, Stéphane Lambiel was an excellent teacher, the best Javi had ever known.

If anyone would know what to do with Javi’s current predicament, it would be him.

“It seems,” said Javi, “that I’ve chosen the wrong candidate.”

“ _Hanyu_?” Bedivere sounded disbelieving. “ _What’s wrong with him_? _He led the pack in training today, no doubt about that_.” 

Javi sighed. “It’s not his skill that I doubt, it’s his conviction. He abhors violence, he doesn’t like secrecy. All the shit we do on a daily basis in the field would be going against his moral compass.”

There was a long pause before the other end of the line responded.

“ _The selection process isn’t exactly black-and-white either, as you well know. In due time we will see just how far he’s willing to bend. I’ll try to help him where I can, though. Don’t you think it would be a breath of fresh air if he were chosen? He’d be a true knight of the modern age, unlike the rest of us_.”

“Hey, just for the record, I think you’re very knightly. You should do a photoshoot on a white horse. Put it in GQ, or maybe Esquire.”

“ _Thanks,_ ” Stéphane said dryly. “ _But I’ll pass. Your destination is just up ahead, Galahad. Number fifteen, the blue one._ ”

Javi drove as leisurely as possible down the short residential street. In the darkness, the terrace house looked just like its neighbours: pristine and gentrified, its robin’s-egg-blue colouring visible even under the watery moonlight. He drove past it to the end of the street, turned a corner, and pulled his car up beneath the branches of a leafy tree next to a park. The gunmetal Peugeot was one of many anonymous mission cars supplied by Kingsman; in the event of an emergency such as Javi abandoning it or the car being towed, any authorities would find it traceless and completely ordinary. No tracks left behind.

Javi put one earbud in—no music, just a block against the world and a distraction to any cameras watching—and slowly made his way back around the corner, looking for all the world like a normal man out on a nighttime stroll. The houses around him were dark, which wasn’t a surprise. None of them were occupied, because the person who owned the blue house owned them all.

“How legal is it to buy off an entire street of houses?”

Bedivere snorted into the comms. “ _More legal than what we’re doing now, probably_. _Focus on the mission, Galahad._ ”

Javi took a deep breath of the chilly night air, pressing his forearm against the comforting silhouette of the gun strapped to his ribs.

“Debrief me again.”

“ _The house_ ,” said Stéphane, slipping into his official voice, “ _belongs to one Nikolai Morozov, forty-one years of age, suspected on multiple counts of sexual offences but so far nothing’s been proven. He colluded with Plushenko and escaped along with him from London to Hackensack, New Jersey the same night Plushenko almost blew you to bits. Both Morozov and Plushenko have strong connections in the United States, so from there our dear Evgeni and Nikolai could have slipped anywhere in the world. Get into the house, get any information you can, and get out. Recon suggests that there isn’t anyone still inhabiting this street, but you never know._ ”

“Jesus.” Javi wanted to throw up. “He sounds absolutely bloody disgusting.”

“ _All clear_ ,” Stéphane relayed. “ _And for the record, I absolutely bloody agree._ ”

Javi walked up to the front door casually, sliding his gloves on as if against the cold. The trimmed lawn looked like it was struggling to remain well-kept under the harsh white glow of the streetlights, and the door was conspicuously devoid of a welcome mat.

 _Fine,_ thought Javi. _If you’re not going to welcome me, I’ll welcome myself._

The lock was reinforced but still quite simple to break, Javi angling his body to block any cameras that might see him picking it. Inside, the house was neat if a little bit dusty, sparsely furnished to the point of nakedness. When Javi turned on the lights, the white walls taunted him, the metal banister of the stairs grinning skeletally.

“Do I have to be gentle?” Javi asked out loud. “This place creeps me out and I’d like to smash it. It doesn't count as breaking and entering if I break after I enter, right?”

“ _I wouldn't know, but I don't think it matters_ _at all,_ ” said Bedivere. “ _Have fun, Galahad_.”

It didn’t take too long to complete his search of the first floor. The living room contained nothing but a spindly coffee table and a set of creaky leather sofas that, once slashed open, revealed only stuffing. The laminate wood flooring concealed no secrets, nor did the kitchen counters and pipes. The fridge and pantry were clean and empty, no false bottoms to the drawers or backs to the cupboards. Morozov appeared to have covered his tracks well.

Javi walked up the stairs (all disappointingly solid), but the second floor yielded largely the same results. There were no finds in the mattress or underneath the large bed, the TV worked as normal, even the closet was completely innocuous. The office was stripped bare of all its items, leaving several empty filing cabinets, a desk without drawers, and a chair of the same tottering make as the coffee table downstairs. The windows and drapery, too, were innocent upon inspection.

It wasn’t until Javi went to the loo that luck favoured him.

“Bedivere,” he said, “this bathtub is fucking hollow.”

“ _You’re kidding_.”

“No,” as Javi crouched down to get a better look, “I’m really not.”

The bathtub was old-fashioned and claw-footed, its porcelain walls just slightly thicker on one side. Javi carefully rapped the thicker side with the butt of the pistol—safety on, he wasn’t an idiot—until the ceramic cracked. He forced the cracks open; underneath them was the thin slit of hollow space Javi had felt when he first tapped the tub. He took a penlight out of the makeshift toolkit he kept sewn into the inside of his jacket, shone it into the tiny space, and caught the telltale wrinkle and sheen of plastic packaging.

“ _Shit,_ ” said Stéphane. “ _Morozov wasn’t playing around, was he_?”

Javi was too preoccupied to answer. He widened the opening he had made and slid a pair of tweezers out of his jacket. A few tugs, and the hidden treasure slid out easily. Only about the size of Javi’s hand, it was wrapped tightly in waterproof layers of plastic, heavy-duty vinyl canvas, latex, and even wax. Damn. Stéphane was right: Morozov really wasn’t playing around. Even with a knife, Javi didn’t think he’d be able to pry the packaging open. He slid his discovery into his jacket along with his tools. Despite all of its protection, it weighed almost nothing.

Javier checked the rest of the bathroom, found nothing, and left the house at speed. The fresh air outside enlivened him, but he still didn’t fully relax until he was back in his car and driving away from the street.

“I’m glad to be out of there,” he told his steering wheel, ignoring the answering chuckle in his ear. “It was like an airless mausoleum.”

At a red light, he stopped to inspect his prize.

“ _You really can’t see anything from the outside of it, can you?_ ” Stéphane mused.

“It’s impossible,” Javi confirmed. “The wrapping is completely opaque. Morozov must have been really worried about it being compromised. I’ll take it to Weir in the morning and see what he can do with it.”

“ _No need to wait for morning. He’s still up. I woke him._ ”

“Yes,” Javi said, his voice like a desert. “Of course you would.”

He changed course for headquarters. It was always more comforting to drive at night knowing he had company, and he had Stéphane’s laughter to keep him awake.

 

* * *

 

“It’s a flash drive,” Weir announced with a flourish. 

Javi raised his eyes in a silent prayer for the heavens to grant him strength. “Are you telling me Nikolai Morozov wrapped a flash drive in four different materials and hid it in his _bathtub_?”

Johnny shrugged—he was perhaps the only person in the world who could shrug at half past three in the morning and still look elegant.

“Come take a look for yourself. You have to admit it, though, it’s a neat trick. Who the hell would think of looking for a flash drive in a bathtub?”

Javi rose with some effort and inspected the item in Johnny’s gloved palm. It was indeed a USB flash drive, and a plain-looking one at that. Even with his glasses on, he couldn’t detect anything notable about it. Yet Morozov had guarded it so well that it had taken Weir and his sharpest blades over an hour to slice through its thick shields.

“All right, so it’s a flash drive. What’s it hiding?”

Johnny winced, all effusiveness gone from his demeanor. “I tried to read it, but the whole thing’s heavily encrypted. I can’t even begin to get at any of the data inside. This might look ordinary, but it’s not normal at all. I’ve seen supercomputers with less security than this.”

Damn. Javi rubbed tiredly at his temples.

“How long will it take to crack?”

“Hard to say,” said Johnny. “As little as a day, or as long as a fortnight.”

“A fortnight? Are you shitting me?” They couldn’t wait a fortnight. They could barely afford to wait a week.

“That’s the worst-case scenario, Jesus, don’t bite my head off. I’ll try to get it done within a week, okay? In the meantime, pursue some other leads.”

Javier slumped a little, suddenly feeling the sleeplessness settle across his shoulders like bricks as the adrenaline washed off. “Will do,” he said. “Sorry for snapping.”

Weir waved him off. “Don’t worry about it.” He peered at Javi like a very thin, strangely maternal ostrich. “Go get some sleep, you don’t seem to have been making a habit of it.”

A strangled noise rose unbidden in Javi’s throat. “I _have_ been sleeping,” he protested. Well. Sort of, anyway. Four hours a night counted, right? “Did Bedivere get you to mother me?”

Johnny clucked. “He didn’t get me to do anything that I haven’t been doing on my own already. This whole business has been taking a toll on you, everyone with eyes can see that. Go, shoo.” He waved a dismissing hand at Javi. “Go to bed, Galahad. You’ve earned it.”

Javi managed a half-hearted “You, too”, before turning and walking away.

 

* * *

 

Cross-legged on his bed, hair still damp from the shower, Javi powered on his laptop, a chipped mug of coffee cradled precariously between his knees, and opened YouTube. 

It felt strangely intimate to be watching these videos, even though they were on the Internet for public consumption. The comments below them, largely in Japanese, nevertheless reflected an enthusiasm and admiration that was obvious even through the language barrier. There were plenty of emoticons, plenty of exclamation marks. Watching the videos, for the first time, Javi understood what had driven him to spill his secrets in Tokyo in response to nothing but a glance. There was something otherworldly about Yuzuru Hanyu, something confessory and deliberate in the way all his softness and sharpness collided. So open, it drew you into him; so reserved, it trapped you there.  An exposed neck, a spread eagle, a triple axel. A rescue, an offer, a snare. On the ice, as on land, he turned vulnerability into steel and made it a weapon.

 _Maybe_ , Javi allowed himself to think, _he could be Mordred after all_.

Javier would train him, this man who had saved his life and held it in his hand for a night. He would scuff and polish him into a true Kingsman agent, because he couldn’t wait to see how that devastating defencelessness would look in the field. Because he finally saw what Stéphane had seen all along: that Yuzuru was good, with the potential to be great. To be something truly different. And Javi could—he _would_ —respect a past that Yuzu wanted to keep hidden. He would not push, he would not pry. From now on, he decided, it was the future that mattered.

Sitting amidst his sheets, blue light illuminating his epiphany, Javier watched his student’s skating programs until the sun came up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all!! sorry for a bit of a delay between chapters; jet lag has been killing me dead. I will try v v hard to update again before September, but no guarantees.
> 
> some, not all, of the training process (including the body bag bit) comes from the original Kingsman movies. the Kingsman tailor shop is an actual thing, called Huntsman in real life, and is located on 11 Savile Row in London. the descriptions for the shop are sourced from images of Huntsman, because I'm daft if I know what tailor shops look like. the chapter title is once again from Rebecca Lindenberg's "Litany".
> 
> as always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, all the support warms the cockles of my heart :') thanks so much for reading!!


	4. myocardial infarction

“Dogs,” said Shoma dumbly.

“Yes, Mr. Uno,” Bedivere agreed pleasantly. “You will each select one of these dogs, and you will be personally responsible for raising and training it. It ought to teach all of you some sorely needed accountability, don’t you think?”

Bedivere was, without a doubt, the only pleasant member of the company gathered on the green that morning. It was a sacrilegiously early hour to be awake and outside, dawn snaking through the fog with that diaphanous golden light particular to autumn sunrises. Yuzuru could feel the morning chill seeping through his jumper. The frosted blades of grass crackled underfoot as he shifted, trying to stay warm.

Looking around, Yuzu saw that the rest of the candidates weren’t better off. Besides Nathan, who was practically vibrating with excitement at the sight of the puppies arrayed in their cages, they were all varying shades of tired, cold, and confused. Shoma was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Misha was blowing on his hands and rubbing them together, and Boyang was looking from Bedivere to the dogs with a vaguely fearful cast to the shape of his mouth.

For Yuzu’s part…he tended to prefer cats. Or bees.

“Have at them,” Bedivere said, still maddeningly cheerful. “Choose wisely! Your dog will accompany you constantly, even in training exercises.”

Nathan bounced up to the cages, going straight for a beautiful white husky with shining blue eyes. Yuzuru took his time selecting, but in the end there was no real choice: The fluffy Akita puppy second from the left was the only dog of Japanese origin, not to mention that his molten eyes were completely irresistible as they stared up at Yuzu. He carefully coaxed the dog out of his cage, letting him sniff and then lick his hand cautiously.

“I think we’ll call you Seimei,” Yuzu decided. “That’s a good name.”

Seimei butted his head against Yuzu’s hand as if in agreement, making Yuzu laugh as his tongue tickled the skin between his fingers.

When he finally got a collar and leash on Seimei, the others had all chosen as well. Boyang was gingerly petting a Borzoi, a skittish, beautiful little thing with a silky, sandy coat. Misha chased a Golden Retriever across the lawn, the dog’s leash trailing uselessly in the grass behind him. Shoma, meanwhile, had a Corgi collared and obedient in his arms, and still managed to look completely lost.

They spent the rest of the early morning doing endurance laps on the frostbitten green. Yuzu kept his inhaler in his pocket and kept pace, the trainees’ feet pounding the grass to the shrill blow of Bedivere’s whistle. Seimei bounded along beside him, occasionally running ahead and then circling back. Despite the slight ache in his muscles from training the day before, it felt good to work off the cold, to breathe in the crisp air away from the city while birds chirped and dogs barked. It was the closest to peace Yuzuru had felt since Tokyo.

They were given supplies and things for the puppies afterwards, and by the time everything was set up right next to Yuzu’s bedside, he was seriously reconsidering his preference for cats.

“Well,” he said to Seimei as his dog lapped water, his small muzzle pushing his brand-new Pet Planet drinking bowl across the floor, “you’re one good thing to come out of this whole mess.”

At lunch, Seimei pawed at his knees and begged for food, even though he had just eaten. Yuzu shamelessly snuck him table scraps anyway.

They ran suicide drills in the afternoon, spurred on to the point of exhaustion by Bedivere’s merciless whistle. Collapsing on the ground afterwards, Yuzuru felt like he was going to drip right into the dirt. His sweat could probably water the grass; he hadn’t experienced this kind of exertion since—

 _No_ , he thought to himself, forcing himself away from the dangerous spiral of his thoughts. He tried to focus on Seimei’s cold black nose tickling the palm of his hand, but it didn’t work. His mind led him astray, over and over again, down the path of his childhood dream.

 _Javi_ , thought Yuzu. That was a safer topic, a more pressing one. Javi, and the frighteningly reasonable case he’d made last night for moral compromise in the field. Perhaps he would show up again tonight to throw him for a loop. 

Then, idly, traitorously, Yuzu wondered if Javier could skate.

 

* * *

 

Galahad had not appeared before dinner.

Yuzuru didn’t know whether he was relieved or disappointed. 

He set his food tray down with the other candidates, between Shoma, who was morosely poking at his salad, and Misha, whose dog was wriggling in his arms. Yuzu sent a silent thanks up to the heavens that pets didn’t trigger his asthma, because Nadezhda seemed intent on shedding as much of her fluffy golden halo of fur as possible.

“Nadia, no!” Misha was trying and failing to stop her from climbing onto the table and stealing his food.

“It’s okay,” said Shoma. “She can have my salad. I don’t mind.”

The table dissolved into a blur of conversation around him, but Yuzuru focused on eating with one hand and petting Seimei with the other. His mind was whirling again, showing him faces and memories he had thought long left behind. He was thinking about whirlpools, hidden waves, riptides in black water at night by a long stretch of docks.

He was thinking about the path he had taken, from past to present, the long twisting road unfurling in his memory – every step a choice, and yet an inevitability.

And then, as always, he thought of the ice.

Yuzuru found Bedivere at the canteen’s drinks station, gently pouring honey into a cup of fragrant lemon tea. The steam formed a halo under the unforgiving ceiling lights, humanizing the starched press of Bedivere’s collar, the immaculate buttons of his waistcoat, the faultless tuck of the black silk scarf against his throat. The agent acknowledged him with a flicker of lowered eyelashes, not ceasing his movements. As casually as possible, Yuzu asked:

“Will Galahad be coming in again today?”

“Mm.” The other man stirred his tea, hardly looking up. Nonchalance wore well on Yuzuru, but it found its true model on Bedivere. “He hasn’t mentioned it, so I don’t think so.”

A quick glance up belied the sincerity of Bedivere’s concern, searching eyes reminiscent of Javier in the way they saw through Yuzu’s façade in a heartbeat. His spoon clattered against the side of his cup, and he _tsked_ , either at the utensil or at himself. In the two days since they’d met, Yuzu had quickly learned that his overseer liked to make noise, but only when it was on purpose.

“I can ring him,” he said. “He’ll be here soon.”

“No, wait,” Yuzuru said quickly. “I don’t actually have anything important to say—”

“How he wants to spend his time is his own business,” Bedivere interrupted sternly, “and anyway, I would hope that I’d trained my student well enough and set a good enough example so that he’d attend to the needs of his _own_ student, important or not.”

He pulled out a small flask of whisky and added it to his tea.

“Something a touch stronger, to last me through an evening of dealing with boys and their damn dogs, eh?” He winked at Yuzu, careless demeanor back in a flash. “Go on. I’ll notify you when Galahad comes.”

 

* * *

 

Javier found Yuzuru standing on the lawn in the soft dusk, the colours of the sky and surroundings layered over him, bleeding sepia tones through the landscape. It made for a sleepy photograph: Yuzu, hands in his pockets, eyes steady but distant as a puppy played in the grass at his feet. Javi tried not to shatter the image with his presence. 

“I’m here,” he said in lieu of a greeting. “Bedivere said you were asking for me?”

Yuzuru’s chin lifted. Proud, fierce, yet fascinatingly vulnerable. “I was wondering if you were going to come again today.”

“I had thought,” Javi said carefully, “to give you time and space. To process, as it were.”

Yuzu shrugged, but it was not a helpless gesture. “I processed. I’ve concluded that no matter how I might feel about this line of work, I am still not accustomed to being less than the best at anything. For my pride alone, I must try my hardest in training. Besides…”

Javi did not prompt as he trailed off. He waited.

“I have,” Yuzuru began more slowly, “been thinking. About all the changes in my life I did not expect to make, and whether I had any choice in making them. I was thinking about where I would be if I hadn’t gone to the waterfront that night, or if I had gone to university in Japan, or if after the earthquake I had kept—kept skating.”

Javi heard the hiccup in Yuzu’s voice, and kept his own gentle.

“Would you have wanted to keep skating?”

“Yes. I would have wanted to skate for my entire life.” There was no trace of doubt in his voice, but Yuzuru shifted, suddenly almost guilty, eyes falling to the ground. “I left Japan because I couldn’t stand it anymore, after the earthquake when everything was ruined. I couldn’t stand Sendai because I couldn’t skate there, I couldn’t stand Tokyo because it wasn’t Sendai. I needed to go somewhere new, so I ran away to London. I left my country behind.”

“I am sure,” said Javi firmly, “that not a single person there blames you for it.”

“ _I_ blame me for it.”

His insistence stirred something within Javi, an echo of the culpability he had carried when he arrived in Dublin, a burden inerasable by nights of smoking under awnings and making drinks in bars.

“Yuzu. Do you want to know why I left Spain?”

Now his gaze turned up to meet Javi’s, and his eyes were like smoke. “Why?”

“Because Spain, for me, was better in memory than it was in the present. It was easier for me when I was in Dublin to remember Madrid lovingly as my home, and give myself the purpose of working to improve the lives of my family. But my situation wasn’t as drastic as yours. There was no disaster to drive me away, and I have always loved Spain more than England and Ireland combined. I was—I am—merely more nostalgic about the country when I am outside it. Within, I forget its magic, and I am unhappy. And I think you should always be where you are happy.”

 _I hope you will be happy here_ , he did not say, but the meaning was implied nonetheless.

“I love Japan,” said Yuzuru. “I didn’t plan to come to London, nor to Kingsman. But now that I am here, I am not entirely unhappy. And I don’t intend to make any compromises, but I believe, in the end, that it was worth it.” 

“Was it?”

“Well, I have a dog now. And…there’s you. You’re here.”

“Literally or metaphorically?”

Another shrug. “Both, I suppose. You’re standing in front of me, but you’re also just here, as in present. Alive. Existing, in general. Because of me.”

“You saved me,” Javi probed. “That’s what’s worth it? My life?”

“Well, I mean, I _did_ also get a dog.”

Javi laughed, and he let the sound carry and fall, scattering a rush of birds from the trees.

“Come with me,” he said. “Let’s go shoot at something.”

 

* * *

 

The shooting range was a confection of metal and glass, dizzying racks of guns and targets lined up neatly in concentric circles of forbidding black.

It was one of Javier’s favourite places in all of Kingsman’s facilities.

As he was perusing through some of the firearm selections down the back, noting down particularly nice ones to requisition from Weir later, he heard shots go off. Javi hurriedly returned to the range, only to see Yuzuru, a gun in each hand, empty two semi-automatics into the bullseye in front of him. The last bullet blew maybe an inch wide of its mark, and Yuzu frowned.

Javi couldn’t keep in an impressed whistle, but Yuzu still looked displeased as he took off his ear protection and stepped out of the stall.

“I’m rusty,” he announced.

This was _rusty_?

“That was about as rusty as stainless steel.” Javi tried and failed to keep sarcasm from his voice. “Goddamn, Yuzu. Who the hell taught you how to shoot?”

His student lazily blew the smoke from his pistols. “Tat.”

“Tat the fuck who?”

“Tatiana Tarasova,” said Yuzu. He hesitated before adding, “she was the one who showed me the ropes when I first moved to London.” He looked up at Javi from over the gun, eyes devastatingly, deceivingly wide. “Have you heard of her before?”

Javi almost laughed in disbelief. Tarasova was a spy _legend_. Born in the Soviet Union, she had built her fame there and in post-Cold War Connecticut before returning to Russia and effectively crowning herself the queen of Moscow. In recent years she had dominated the scene in London and Lyon, making her name in numerous high-profile MI6 and Interpol collaborations. Her tutelage was among the most highly sought-after in the world, and she had a reputation for turning out champion operatives. Who hadn’t heard of her?

“Y-yes, I know of her,” he stammered. “She’s trained many other Kingsman agents as well. The current Lancelot was a once a student of hers.” As well as Weir, and Javier’s own predecessor. Good fucking god.

Yuzuru brightened, suddenly childlike. “Tat could be intimidating and opinionated, but she was always very nice to me. I think I was her favourite student!”

“Charming,” Javi managed. “I won’t worry about your weapons scores, then.”

There was a neighbouring training room that was hard for most to spot, as the walls were made up entirely of the best bulletproof glass money could buy. Transparent as the boundaries were, it was a good way to give demonstrations, and to hone one’s spatial awareness.

He took an umbrella from the racks, slid into the room, and pulled out his own gun. Javi was an excellent marksman who’d been in his own fair share of shootouts, but so had Plushenko. He would have to brush up if he intended to meet his old enemy on even ground—and that was his goal. As long as Javier Fernández had his way, Tokyo would not happen again.

“Don’t come near the room, just in case,” he told Yuzuru, and then took off his jacket and locked the door behind him.

The button was worn from the touch of so many agents before him, but it reacted to the authority of his fingerprint as well as it ever had. Javi raised his weapon, steadied himself, and pressed it.

Holographic opponents burst to life throughout the space, some armed, some not. The simulation was designed to be randomly generated; on one memorably unpleasant occasion, it had involved a sniper rifle and several hand grenades.

A melee was much more Javi’s style.

He dealt with the armed ones first, opening the umbrella to guard himself against direct attacks and ricochet from the front. The holographic bullets would not wound, but they would give him a static shock, and Javi preferred to keep his electrons as undisturbed as possible. When his bullets ran out while engaged with the last armed opponent, he threw it at its head to finish it off before it could return fire.

The few remaining ones, all unarmed, went down fairly quickly. Javi finished off the final one with a swipe of his umbrella and a well-placed elbow to its solar plexus. When he looked up, flexing his arm to rid it of any lingering electricity, Yuzuru was standing still as if rooted to his stall, staring at Javi with astonishment fixed on his face.

Astonishment, and a little bit of awe.

Javi could well remember his own, very similar reaction to Stéphane doing this demonstration over four years ago. It had been the moment he’d realised that Kingsman was _real_ —real, and legitimate, and not a wild fantasy dreamt up from too many gin and tonics at the bar after closing hours. It had been like having cold water dumped on his head, but in the best way.

Yuzu was still gaping a little when Javi stepped out of the room. Somehow Javi knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“That room can only be used by full Kingsman agents,” he warned. “It won’t acknowledge your fingerprint if you try to scan it, and I can’t let you in without breaking the rules, no matter how much I might like to see what you could do.”

Yuzu scowled a little and crossed his arms, felinely disgruntled at having his hopes denied. Javi briefly, against his better judgment, thought it adorable. There was a strange fondness building in his chest for Yuzuru Hanyu, flimsy and rare as a snowflake in summer.

“I’m done,” he announced in a childish fit of pique. “Let’s go.”

And then: “I was wondering what those umbrellas were for anyway.”

Javi couldn’t help his laugh this time.

_He thinks all this is worth it, even though he doesn’t possess the temperament of a spy. Even though this isn’t what he’d had planned for himself. He thinks it’s worth it, because he saved my life._

_My life. Worth it._

It was time, Javi supposed, to stop thinking of Yuzuru as a stranger. It was time to trust him.

 

* * *

 

They drove through London from the shooting range through the deepening twilight, this time in Javier’s own car, a sleek blue-black Aston Martin DB11. Kingsman had given it to him after a particularly stellar performance on an overseas mission in Singapore—as Stéphane had said, _if you’re going to be bloody James Bond, you might as well drive James Bond’s car._ Javi looked after it meticulously, and loved it as much as he loved anything else in the world.

“This car is nice,” Yuzu commented as he slid into the passenger seat. “Fancier than last night’s.”

“That car was Kingsman’s, not mine,” said Javi, preening a little at the compliment. “We usually drive specially modified hackney carriages on missions, but I wanted an anonymous vehicle last night. This one, however, is my personal car. I don’t use it for official business.”

“Anonymous? Why?”

Javi explained the course of his investigation into Morozov’s house. As Yuzuru went quiet, nodding at key intervals, Javi was forcibly reminded again that his student was not a normal trainee. The laser-focused analysis of the retelling of the story and the capable handling of the puppy sleeping on a rug in the backseat suggested a much more experienced operative. Not to mention the ability to calmly hit twenty bullseyes in a row without so much as breaking a sweat.

_Rusty. Jesus._

“So,” said Yuzu, “Weir is trying to crack this flash drive.”

Javi sighed heavily. “Yes, and hopefully he’ll crack it soon. Finding Plushenko is of top priority for us and the rest of the world. Interpol is on the case as well, but so far they’ve found moot.”

Yuzuru hummed. “And Plushenko’s still out for your blood?”

“I would expect nothing less of my old enemy,” Javi said, wry and rueful. “I just hope he’s too busy covering his own arse to mess with mine.”

They fell silent as Javi drove, streetlamps pooling in spools of gold on either side, until Yuzuru spoke up: “So am I not considered official business?”

Thrown, Javi cast a startled look in his direction. “What?”

“Earlier, you said you don’t use this car for official business. So, does this not count as official?”

“Ah,” Javi replied eloquently, pretending to be distracted by the florid exterior of a passing shop. “Well, Kingsman business is official business, but on the other hand, we are going to my home, and I’m not too hung up on the idea of driving home in a cab.”

_Good job, Fernández. Talked yourself out of that one._

In all reality, he wasn’t sure why they were going to his house. Javi had had some vague notion of showing Yuzuru the screen in his living room and introducing Seimei to Andrés, but other than that he had no real reason for bringing him all the way to central London at night. No reason, besides a burgeoning insistence deep inside him that he show Yuzu his home here. That he tell him all the little stories: how Stéphane had bought all his furniture at first, how Javi had replaced it bit by bit with his own, how every piece was a memory, how last year his sister had sent wrought iron candlesticks just in time for his birthday.

And maybe, if Yuzu liked it, if he found enough merit in the little world Javi had so painstakingly constructed for himself, he would build a home here too.

“We’re going to your place? I thought you might have been driving to a pub or café.”

“No, we’re headed _a mi casa_ ,” confirmed Javi. “Not that we can’t go to a pub if that’s what you want, but we’re already in the neighbourhood anyway, and if we do go out to eat I want to pick up my dog.”

“I had dinner already, so I’m not—wait,” Yuzu’s eyes went wide, presumably having put two and two together, “you live here? In _Belgravia_?”

“I do, thanks to Kingsman and its brilliant workplace benefits. Did you know I have full dental too?”

Yuzu’s eyes got even bigger when Javi pulled his car up, and bigger still when he stood at the front doors, his dog in his arms.

“You own a mews house,” he said, his tone awestruck. “In Belgravia. With _private parking_.”

Javi couldn’t resist a wink. “When I said workplace benefits, I meant it.”

 

* * *

 

The interior of Javier’s house was like a private museum someone had built for himself, full of odds and ends and inexplicably prized eccentricities, valuable only to its curator. It wasn’t pristine, either, a fact that endeared it to Yuzu immediately. Here and there were indications that someone actually lived in this gathering of furniture and walls: the way the front door stuck a little; fingerprint smudges on the foyer mirror; the lean, elegant dog padding behind them, nudging at Seimei with an inquisitive nose. 

Hung on the wall as they went up the stairs was a framed photo of the man of the house himself, his arm slung around a smiling, elegant-boned woman who resembled him strongly. She held a massive cat in her lap. The cat was not smiling.

“You like cats?” asked Yuzu. He wanted to ask if the woman was Javier’s sister, but sense held him back. He didn’t want to force Javi to lie to him.

Javi broke into a grin nearly as large as the one he wore in the photograph.

“I love cats!” he enthused. “Anyone who doesn’t is either a monster or a moron. That’s Roni, he’s old and grumpy and wonderful. Come on, let’s go to the living room.”

The topic of his feline friend seemed to have put Javi in a considerably lighter mood. He prodded Yuzu into an eclectic sitting room, the Brunswick green walls a shade darker than those of the tailor shop. Colourful striped curtains were drawn closed over large windows, and a large abstract painting full of harsh, improbable geometry dominated one wall. There were coffee rings on the petrified wood table.

Yuzu sat on the couch and watched Javi flick on the light switch before leaning over to fiddle with a lamp, the shadows of the lampshade playing hide-and-seek with his sharp cheekbones.

“You have a dog,” he blurted out, and then instantly felt like a moron.

The lamp sputtered to life, and Javi turned to blink at him. His eyelashes, Yuzuru felt, were unfairly long.

“All Kingsman agents receive dogs in training,” said Javi. “I’d like a cat too, but I don’t think Andrés would tolerate an interloper.”

Yuzu glanced at the dog in question, whose long ears were twitching as he nosed curiously at Seimei.

“He’s an Ibizan Hound,” explained Javi semi-apologetically. “He likes to chase cats, but he behaves well around other dogs.”

“I thought Kingsman dogs were all well-trained?”

Javi gave him a _look_ and neatly sidestepped out of Yuzu’s trap.

“I’m not the best dog trainer, I’ll admit, but you shouldn’t worry. I’m much better with humans.”

“I certainly hope so,” Yuzu managed. It was a weak retort.

_Dunce._

Javi moved towards a trolley in the corner, laden with darkly gleaming bottles and cut-glass decanters filled with amber liquid. “Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked. “A cider, maybe?”

Yuzu cleared his throat. “Just water if you have it, please. I’m allergic to alcohol.” He observed Javi pouring out the drinks, the surface of his watch reflecting the lamplight. The other man was—there was no other word for it—too kind. It was a kindness that Yuzuru had not seen in Javier Fernández, the mystery of Tokyo, the interrogator at dinner, the spy in the simulation.

He wondered if it meant that this before him was Javier, the man.

Javier returned before he could ruminate any further, passing Yuzuru his water.

“You’d better pray no one dies on any missions, then,” Javi said with only a touch of morbid humour. “We break out this really nice brandy for it and everyone has to drink.”

Yuzu was more startled by the fact that Javi was treating his position in Kingsman as a foregone conclusion than by the revelation of the scotch. Of course a rich, established British intelligence agency would have a ritual like that. He took a pensive, stabilizing sip of his drink.

“You seem to be confident that I’m going to be privy to these missions.” The laps he had ran today certainly hadn’t seemed to put much stock in his chances.

Javi toyed with the wine glass in his hands, half-filled with cider, and said nothing. Yuzu watched his long fingers play around the stem for a moment, and then looked away. He was abruptly tired.

“If you’re going to show me some dashing spy stuff, do it now, before I fall asleep.”

The corner of Javi’s mouth quirked, and Yuzu tried not to notice.

“Am I that boring?” he lamented, and rose again. “Give me a hand here with this painting, I need to take it off the wall.”

“Not boring,” Yuzu quipped, amused despite himself. “Just predictable.”

They lifted the geometric painting off the wall and set it aside. It was gigantic, and yet the plaster behind it wasn’t even dusty. Yuzu spared a moment of uncharacteristic appreciation for Javi’s strength; this was clearly something he did often, and alone.

“I keep forgetting,” said Javi, dusting his hands off, “that this is all old hat to you.” He jerked his head towards the blank wall. “Well, maybe this will be something new.”

He tapped the wall a few times with his knuckles, and it slid open.

“Wow,” said Yuzu—dryly, to hide the fact that he was badly impressed. “You keep your organizational secrets hidden behind a painting? I’m not sure if that’s cliché or subversive.”

“It’s Morse code for _K_ ,” Javi said. He was grinning—clearly Yuzu had given his shock away. “You just tap on the wall.”

“How exciting,” retorted Yuzu, but now he was smiling as well. “Hollywood movies everywhere are stunned.”

Nevertheless, it was hard to hide his fascination with the mechanics of the wall itself. “The moving parts are seamless with the rest of the wall,” Yuzu murmured. Seimei had come over and begun to sniff at the base of the wall. “And I bet they move back into space behind hollow plaster, which is why the painting has to be big to cover it all up…”

“I wanted,” Javi interrupted gently, “to show you this.”

He scrolled past Arthur and Lancelot’s profiles to bring up Mordred’s, the headshot conspicuously absent. There was no agent listed, but there was a short character summary. Yuzuru moved forward almost on instinct, conscious of Javier’s eyes on him as he read it silently.

_Of a class with LANCELOT and beneath only ARTHUR, MORDRED is a position reserved for truly skilled agents. Commonly ambitious, charismatic, and diligent, MORDRED operatives are not to be underestimated. Though the historical knight for which these agents are named is often an unsavoury character, care must be taken not to prejudice oneself against them. Proud and strong-willed as well as highly resourceful, these trailblazers make fearsome enemies but benevolent friends. Renowned MORDREDs include: Sonja Henie, Midori Ito, Gillis Grafström._

Yuzuru paused. “So, basically, I’m supposed to be a Slytherin?”

Javi huffed out a surprised laugh. “Yes, I suppose.” He rubbed his forehead. “Goddamn, I’d never thought of it that way before. Things make a lot more sense put into that light.”

“Well then,” said Yuzuru. “Good thing I _am_ a Slytherin.” He frowned. “But surely the other agents wouldn’t have recruited complete novices? And everyone must have a general sense of what kind of person would make a good Mordred.”

“You have realised that you’re head and shoulders above the other recruits? Or so Bedivere tells me, anyway.”

Yuzu blinked. Startled into honesty, he responded, “I think I was too busy having a crisis.”

Again, Javi’s laugh was surprised but not unkind. “Bedivere’s a tosser,” he said with affection. “Don’t let that old slave-driver get to you, he’s really just a big softie on the inside.”

“Well,” Yuzu replied softly, suddenly unsure, “the training doesn’t bother me, so you don’t have to worry about that. Anyway, I’m alright now…thanks to you.”

There was something, then, in the curve of Javi’s answering smile and the liquid brightness of his eyes, that alleviated Yuzuru’s apprehension. His heartbeat said: _Oh no_.

“Worth it,” Javier said, as if to himself. In the gold and the shadows, he was a decadent ghost.

Yuzu’s heartbeat amended its statement. It just said: _Oh_.

“Come on,” Javi said after a moment. “Let’s get some hot chocolate, I’ll show you around, and you can have the spare room if you don’t want to go back to the dorms tonight.”

“As long as you don’t spike it,” Yuzu managed. As comebacks went, it wasn’t his best, but Javi chuckled obligingly anyway.

“Pinky promise,” he said, mock-solemn, and whistled for Andrés.

 

* * *

 

(That night, Yuzuru ended up lying awake in the guest room bed, Seimei curled up by his feet. He’d left the curtains open, and moonlight pooled through the window, but he was too tired to go close them. 

His heart was still stuttering _oh_.

 _Life lesson,_ he ruminated half-heartedly for the millionth time. _Don’t go saving random strangers in Tokyo at night_. He would’ve snorted at himself if he’d had the energy; it sounded like one of his mother’s axioms. He’d never listened to her—he’d always thought it better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, and if he could get away with something once, he could get away with it a second time.

How reckless he had been. How reckless he still was.

Yuzu closed his eyes. He thought maybe he could be okay with recklessness, so long as it came with this: a fluttering bird inside his ribcage, and a sense of hope.)

 

* * *

 

Javi had burned the toast in his hurry to leave the house on time, so Yuzu ate scrambled eggs on a cold bagel in the car while Javi cursed at the morning out-of-city traffic.

“Don’t drop any crumbs,” he warned Yuzu. “At the rate we’re going they’ll molder before we arrive—oh, bloody fucking git!” This was as a Toyota used the shoulder to pass them on the motorway.

It was highly entertaining.

“Why didn’t we take the train?” Yuzu asked. “It couldn’t have been slower than this.”

“Yeah, except this way you get to make an impression on everyone else by showing up in a fancy ride. I also have to give the Percivals a lift to the airport after, so I need the car.”

“I’m not sure showing up late in a luxury car is the kind of impression I want to give,” said Yuzu.

Javi pretended to ponder his words.

“Would it help if we got Starbucks?”

Yuzu laughed, and nearly choked on his food.

 

* * *

 

They fell into a rhythm, in the end. Javi would come to get him a few times a week at the end of the day, and then they would eat or talk or beg the people at the dog park to let them stay ten minutes past closing so they could play a few more rounds of frisbee fetch. Sometimes Yuzu stayed in the guest room, sometimes he snuck back into the facility late at night, exchanging hushed Japanese with Shoma, who would inevitably be playing some kind of video game.

It took two weeks before Javi started getting antsy about the flash drive.

In those two weeks, Misha left. He had finished last in a strange triathlon test that had involved parachuting out of a jet, successfully conducting an interrogation, and pursuing a “hostile” through the Piccadilly Market. Stéphane had patted him on the back and warned, direly, that he only expected the competition to last for another two and a half weeks.

So, two days into the threat of elimination hanging over his head and Javier snapping and then apologising in an endless cycle, Yuzuru did the only thing he could think of.

“Javi,” he asked one day in the car, “will you spar with me?” He held up a hand to forestall any forthcoming argument. “I _know_ you want to go pester Weir about it being past a fortnight already, but I don’t think being impatient with him is going to help anything. And, besides,” he added in a flash of inspiration, “the more annoyed Weir is, the more annoying Bedivere is going to be to me in training.”

Javi blew out a breath, and quirked a wry smile.

“How odd it is that you’re the voice of reason,” he said, but his voice was warm. His eyes slid to fix on Yuzu in a sideways glance.

Yuzu flushed. “Keep your eyes on the road.”

 _You’re blushing_ , said a little voice in his head. Yuzu had grown accustomed to it by now, honestly, but he didn’t consciously think about it. Self-actualization was a sham.

 _Shut up_ , he told it. _Idiot._

The voice snickered. Yuzu had grown accustomed to that, as well.

That evening, he discovered that Javier Fernández was an excellent sparring partner. It had been a while since Yuzu had had the opportunity to test himself against another, and he had found himself enjoying the fight: the speed of it, the strain. The euphoria of being challenged, really challenged. He sat up, his skin sticking. The muscles in his shoulders and back sang with pleasure as he stretched out his arms.

“How many languages do you speak?”

Yuzuru twisted to look at Javi from his position on the floor. They had been sparring for the better part of an hour, and sweat was coalescing unpleasantly between his shoulder blades as they rested against the mats. His mentor was leaning against a punching bag, one arm wrapped lazily around the top where chains hung it from the wall.

“Three,” he answered. “Japanese, English, and Russian. Why?”

Javi raised an eyebrow, ignoring his question. “Where did you learn Russian?”

“I asked first.”

Javi rolled his own shoulders and said nothing. The silence stretched on until Yuzu blew out an exasperated breath, giving in.

“Tat taught me.”

“Tarasova taught you many things, it seems.”

“Yes,” Yuzu said, properly irritated now, “she did. She taught me how to shoot, she taught me how to fight, she taught me how to survive. Russian happened along the way.”

Tatiana Anatolievna had taken Yuzuru to Russia two years prior in a fit of inexplicable pique. Yuzuru remembered with clarity how she had dropped him into Moscow’s humming heart and shown him how to pluck the city like a fruit, how to peel it so it fell open for him in perfect segments, ripe and ready in the palm of his hand. Then, she had sent him to Petersburg and made him repeat the lesson himself.

It had been a good summer.

“I asked because it seems to me you have the ability to win the candidacy for Mordred, and just in case you do I’ll need to prepare your profile.” Javier was doing cooldown exercises without looking at Yuzu, body bent like he had been cut at the waist to press his palms flat against the floor. Yuzu mimicked him from the mat, folding over to wrap his hands around the balls of his feet.

“Do you really think so?” Yuzu was good. He _knew_ he was good. But Kingsman would only take the best of the best, and he didn’t know if he was that. Not yet.

Javi rolled up into a bicep stretch in one smooth motion. “Yes. We’ve been over the playing field already. You know where you stand.”

It was true. They had evaluated Yuzuru’s remaining competition, cloistered night after night in the shifting green walls of Javier’s living room. Nathan, though swift and sure, had a tendency to clam up under the pressure of interrogation; Shoma could match Yuzu’s ability in technology and hacking but lost his eloquence when it came to language that was not a coded one; Boyang’s weapons scores were immense but he wanted for refinement. Yuzu was objectively the most complete agent out of all of them; this was a fact. He was better, and he knew it.

But he wasn’t sure if that was the same as _best_.

“I don’t mean if I’m able to win the candidacy.” Yuzu sat back up and tilted his neck back, let his head loll. “I mean if I’m able to become Mordred. To be second to Arthur, and equal to Lancelot.” _And above you_. The words went unsaid, but they were implied nonetheless.

“Mordred is a difficult position, meant for highly qualified agents.” From above, Javier’s eyes were unreadable. It was impossible to break his gaze. “It is a role that requires fluidity and self-possession. You need to be able to step beyond yourself, to change state as easily as water and still retain your identity. And you must be proud, but not brittle. Proud enough to play the long game. Proud enough to endure.”

Yuzuru tested Javi’s words out in his mind, flexed them against his skull and wrung them through his brain. The identity sat well enough within him, but he was still not completely comfortable with it.

“Well,” said Yuzu, trying to deflect and alleviate some of the intensity of the moment, “it looks like Bedivere’s screen has come in handy after all. You’re obviously able to recite agent descriptions by heart.”

The other man did not laugh, but his posture loosened in acquiescence of the change in topic.

“My mentor’s an old fool, but he does have some good ideas sometimes.” The gentleness Javier gained when speaking of Bedivere did not entirely go away as he transferred his attention to Yuzuru, holding out a hand. “Let’s get out of here. I want a shower.”

Yuzu was fully capable of rising from the mats on his own.

He accepted the proffered hand anyway, and let Javi pull him up.

 

* * *

 

The sparring came in handy when Yuzu beat Nathan in hand-to-hand combat two days later. 

“Yield,” Nathan panted at his feet.

A second later on the other side of the room, Shoma flipped Boyang in a neat move, the impact hard enough that even Bedivere winced.

The whistle.

And then there were two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /shows up five months late without even Starbucks
> 
> hi! unfortunately, higher education has got it in for me and I spent all of last term trying to resist the siren call of the abyss. I do hope that this chapter somewhat makes up for it, though, and I reorganized the plot so we're at 8 chapters total now instead of 10. 
> 
> a cool little note: TAT lived in Simsbury, Connecticut for over a decade, and she also actually coached and still choreographs for Mao, and has choreographed for Weir and Lysacek. 
> 
> as always, please feel free to leave a kudos and/or comment, and thanks for reading!


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